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Dutchess_III's avatar

Do your kids ever come up with their own pronunciation of words that are more interesting than the "right" pronunciation?

Asked by Dutchess_III (46811points) June 4th, 2012

My eight year old grandaughter has suddenly become fixated on obtaining a picture of “A pond, with two swans, blue sky, sunshine and ‘roaming’ hills.” “Roaming hills” sounds more marvelous than “rolling hills” to me! So I’ll go with that for a while. (Working on finding said picture! :)

Same child at four, called squirrels “squirrids.” We stuck with that for a long time, until one day, about six months later later, one of us said it and she looked at us very oddly and corrected us. :) We still prefer ‘squirrids’ over ‘squirrels.’

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33 Answers

Fly's avatar

@laineybug used to call the computer a “puh-cuter,” which was adorable! She also coined the term “deliciyum.” (Perfect for describing food that is both delicious and yummy!)

Dutchess_III's avatar

Deliciyum! Wonderful!
When my son was little he called a computer a “puter.” :)

Sunny2's avatar

If they are mis-hearings of word, they are called mondogreens. If they are made up words, they are neologisms. In any case, They are wonderfully amusing and delightful. Particularly when they are your children’s or grandchildren’s. Share and enjoy!

Trillian's avatar

My son used to ask for “Biksits”, and my youngest daughter used to hold out different objects and invite people to “mell it”.

CWOTUS's avatar

Well, everyone likes busghetti, don’t they?

Bellatrix's avatar

We used to shop in Sumer Kmutt rather than Super Kmart.

My daughter said the dogs parolled the fences rather than patrolled.

My cat still has burr in his froat rather than purr in his throat.

bewailknot's avatar

My daughter did the Biksits thing, and said gaspetti. My son made up his own words that had nothing to do with the real word, but the only one I can remember was lay-lays for raisins.

Dutchess_III's avatar

@bewailknot ‘rai’ = ‘lay’. Sometimes getting close to the first syllable, then repeating it, is the closest they can get to a whole, two syllable word!

Why, @Bellatrix MY cat has a burr in his froat too!

6rant6's avatar

Renember.

zenvelo's avatar

My son wanted to know why Sama Alladin flew the planes on 9–11.

Dutchess_III's avatar

@zenvelo LOL, but not LOL! You know?

bewailknot's avatar

@Dutchess_III I can see your point, but his pronunciation was excellent otherwise, he didn’t have any speech difficulties, he just had a few made-up words. He could say raisins just fine.

Supacase's avatar

Well, we have “supacase” for “suitcase” and I love it because it makes me think we are going somewhere super every time I pack.

My grandpa particularly liked when my daughter said “dubby” instead of “w,” especially since she could recite the rest of the alphabet correctly.

My personal favorite was “mom-ee-uh” for “mommy.” I wish I had a recording of that little voice calling for me.

Dutchess_III's avatar

@Supacase LOVE it! Loll! Now..don’t make me cry…I miss my children’s voices. They’re like echos, getting fainter and fainter all the time. :(

ccrow's avatar

Hmm… my son said ‘mennows’ for marshmallows, and ‘mennow fuff’ for marshmallow fluff. He had a ‘piddow’ on his bed. Some of my grandkids would say ‘Ta-Na!!’ instead of ‘Ta-dah!’ which I like much better! (Now another one says ‘B’Da!!’) The same son used to sing ‘Danny Boy’- he did pretty well but sang ‘tis you, tis you, must go, and I must pie’! instead of ‘bide’.:-)
@bewailknot my brother used to say ‘wawdud’ for ‘robin’- he could say ‘raw’ and ‘bin’ but ask him to say ‘robin’ and it was ‘wawdud’.

WillWorkForChocolate's avatar

When my oldest was really little, she pronounced chocolate as “cock-uh-lut”. My mother and I still giggle about that one.

Then we had the usual:
fum = thumb
gukkies = duckies
peeno = piano
moe = more
mato = tomato
nanner = banana
nays = nails “No term my nays, mommy!” (Don’t trim my nails, mommy!)

Dutchess_III's avatar

It’s cool how you guys have figured out the reasoning behind how your kids came up with some of the words they did!

My daughter learned the words “tomato” and “tornado” at the same time (we’re from Kansas, ya’ll.) They were interchangeable as “po-nino!” She mostly talked about tomatos, but one time we were out walking in a field and she suddenly stopped, pointed up to the sky and said, “Po-nino!!!” In my mind I saw a huge tomato crashing down upon us!

@WillWorkForChocolate :)

Nimis's avatar

I like how some kids call butterflies flutter-by’s.
Makes more sense to me.

WillWorkForChocolate's avatar

@Nimis My little one used to call them bufferlies.

Nimis's avatar

@WillWorkForChocolate Cute. Who says it has to make any sense?

augustlan's avatar

@Fly coined the term “squareular” (think “circular”, but for squares). @mangeons said “mik” for “milk”, and “hambugger” for “hamburger”.
I couldn’t say “grandmother”, so I called mine “Mema”. My mother couldn’t either, and her grandmother was called “Nanu”.

FluffyChicken's avatar

My brother had/has a lot of them. He had his own special language till he was four, and I don’t remember too many of his words from then. After he started using real words, Spaghetti was puhsketti, remember is still renember, but my favorite was cop-porn instead of pop-corn.

Supacase's avatar

How could I forget “binces”?!! My daughter came up with that one around age two. It took me a while to realize she was referring to women’s breasts.

Supacase's avatar

@FluffyChicken Cop-porn is cracking me up!

WillWorkForChocolate's avatar

I love a man in uniform, especially when he takes it off. Bow chicka bowwow!

Dutchess_III's avatar

Brown chicken brown cow!

Sunny2's avatar

I really enjoyed all these. Thanks for sharing. Just shows to go ya how difficult learning a language is. I’ve heard it suggested that If you put a recording device under a 1 ½ year old’s bed, you can hear them practicing sounds. As adults, we may unwittingly mispronounce words because we’‘ve only read them. Quintessential becomes quintessional. I frequently hear a word pronounce differently in the media than I thought it was. Learn something every day.

ccrow's avatar

Hey, @Sunny2 , the person on TV might be the one saying it wrong:-)

Dutchess_III's avatar

@Sunny2 OK. I give. How the heck do you pronounce “Quintessential”? I say, Quint-ah-cental.

Fly's avatar

@Dutchess_III It should be pronounced exactly as you would say each half separately; quint + essential.

Dutchess_III's avatar

K. Then I’m OK. Except I say “ah,” and I s’pose I shouldn’t.

Sunny2's avatar

@Dutchess_ III How essential is it? Quint-essential.

Dutchess_III's avatar

I got it. I’m just saying that I’ve tended to say “Ahssential.”

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